by Claire Allan
I know Rachel isn’t trying to be insensitive. I know she’s still sore from the break-up of her own marriage, which ended after her husband had an affair. Or, to be more accurate, numerous affairs.
I change the subject. I don’t feel comfortable falling down this particular rabbit hole with her.
‘I have to nip out to pick up my car from the garage,’ I tell her.
‘Let me run you there in my car,’ she offers. ‘I’ll pick us up something nice for afternoon break.’
I notice the sandwich I made has barely been touched. It would be churlish of me to refuse her offer of a lift, so I smile and thank her, and we grab our things and climb into her car.
‘Excuse the mess,’ she says as she throws an empty McDonald’s paper into the back seat, which is strewn with empty drinks bottles, a dog lead and a pair of rather smelly football boots.
‘It’s no messier than it was last night, don’t be worrying,’ I tell her.
‘At least last night the darkness hid the worst of it,’ she laughs.
As we drive to the garage, I know I’m too quiet. My head’s full of words, but I don’t know how to say them without sounding like I’m a paranoid wreck. I hate this feeling. Normally, conversation flows really easily between Rachel and me, and we can share each other’s worries and concerns.
‘He loves you very much, you know,’ Rachel says as we drive over the Foyle Bridge towards the garage. ‘That’s what’s on your mind, isn’t it? That stupid note. But you really shouldn’t worry. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a more devoted husband. I’m sorry if I spoke out of turn yesterday. He’s one of the good guys.’
And he is. Without doubt. I remind myself not to make problems where none exist.
*
At 3.43 p.m., we watch a sixty-three-year-old man hold his fifty-nine-year-old wife’s hand as her chest stills. The rattle that’s come with each breath for the last twelve hours slows then stops, and the grip she’s held on his hand releases. I watch a man, still alive in every physical way that matters, die a little in front of me as he kisses his wife of thirty years on her lips before they have the chance to turn cold.
Then, very tenderly, Rachel and I do what we need to with his wife who we’ve cared for over the course of the last week. We remove the tubes and wires. We tidy the bed sheets around her. We open the window, an old hospice tradition, believed to let the spirit of the deceased move on. Then we stand back and let her family begin their grieving process.
‘Some are tougher than others,’ Rachel says as we leave.
‘Yes,’ I reply. I can’t bring myself to say more. I’m afraid I won’t be able to keep it together.
‘Almost home time,’ she says.
‘And we get to do it all again tomorrow,’ I respond, too worn out to say anything else.
CHAPTER FOUR
Louise
I’d told myself if I saw her again before the end of the week, it’d be a sign from God that I was right. This baby was the one I’d been waiting for.
I’d been on edge since I first saw her. Always looking at the door of the café, watching every person come in, feeling frustrated when it’d been someone else.
But then, I was in the supermarket, half-heartedly throwing a sad selection of meals for one, to be washed down with a bottle of wine, into my basket, when I saw her hovering around the fresh fruit aisle.
She looked more tired than before. The dark circles under her eyes only highlighted her pallor. She probably needed iron, I thought. She had apples and grapes in her basket, but really she should’ve been stocking up on leafy greens, red meat. That kind of thing. I was tempted to talk to her, but what would I have said?
What would it have looked like? A mad woman in the supermarket telling her that she needs more iron in her diet.
I followed her from a distance. Watched as she put some fresh bread into her basket. Wholemeal. That was good at least. As was the fresh orange juice she chose. It was good to see she could make some decent choices for her baby. The chocolate biscuits, the tinned soup – neither of those were particularly nutritious. Not for an expectant mother. I shook my head.
Her baby needed to be well. I needed this baby to be well.
I wasn’t one of those crazies who thought a woman became nothing more than an incubator when she fell pregnant, but the baby always had to come first. Anything else was selfish. A mother shouldn’t just eat what she wanted, do what she wanted without considering the life she was growing inside her.
Every baby deserved the best start in life.
That’s how it had been with me. Not that it mattered in the end.
Maybe I knew nothing. Maybe this woman with her tinned soup and her packet of biscuits knew more than I did. It wouldn’t matter in a few months’ time anyway. I’d be able to feed my baby all the healthy food they needed.
CHAPTER FIVE
Eli
My mother’s car is parked outside my house. I smile when I see it, even though I know she’ll probably drive me mad within an hour of being in her company.
As I pick up the couple of bags of shopping I’d left on the passenger seat, I watch the rain bounce off the ground outside, remembering how my mother told me that the splashes of water were actually fairies dancing. I believed her for so long. If I’m honest, I think a part of me still believes her now, or chooses to at least. I rub my tummy. I’ll tell my baby that story. Create a bit of magic for them just as my mother had for me. Even when we didn’t have much, we’d always had some magic.
I’m still watching the fairies dance and jump, when I see the door to my house open and the porch light switch on. My mother stands there, pulling her cardigan tightly around her as she looks out through the rain. She blinks, looks at me and waves, and I wave back.
Suddenly, I’m the overexcited primary school pupil seeing her mother arrive in the playground at the end of a long day of colouring in and learning to write my letters. I just want a hug from her, so I open the car door and trample through the dancing fairies into my mother’s now open arms, still holding the shopping bags.
‘Sweetheart, I was so worried. Where’ve you been? I was expecting you home an hour ago.’ The genuine concern in her voice warms my heart.
‘I just called into town to pick up a few things. I’ve not had time to do a big shop so our cupboards are bare. It’s just some basics.’
She ushers me in through the door and takes the bags from me. Sitting them on the floor, she helps me out of my coat.
‘There was no need. I’m sure you’re wrecked after your day at work and the last thing you needed to be doing was running round the shops. Besides, you should know by now that I always come prepared.’
The smell of her special chicken soup hits me and I’m shocked to feel hungry.
‘Is that your soup? Oh! Mum, it smells delicious. I got some lovely fresh bread that’ll go down a treat with it.’
‘We make a great pair,’ she says. ‘Of course, if you moved back to Belfast we could make a great pair all the time.’
‘Mum,’ I say, teasing. ‘Enough. You know we’re settled here. Martin’s practice is here. My job is here. Our lovely home is here. Martin’s family is here. You could always move down, though.’
She bristles. This is a discussion we’ve had before.
‘You know I have my own life in Belfast,’ she says. ‘I’m too old to start again somewhere new. You and Martin, though, you’re young things who could make a go of things anywhere.’
‘Shall we stop this conversation before it gets heated?’ I ask. ‘And can we also get me some of that soup? I’m hungry.’
‘I knew my soup would tempt you,’ she says, beaming. ‘When you were a little girl, chicken soup always brought you round when you were feeling poorly. You could be looked after like this all the time if—’
‘Mum!’ I fire a warning shot and she shrugs her shoulders. Tells me she was ‘just saying’ before taking two bowls from the cupboard and ladling the soup into them.
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I slice the bread, bring it and butter to the dining table. Sitting down, I look out through the bifold doors at the darkness of the lake. The rain is battering the glass, raindrops chasing raindrops down the windows. It’s going to be a rough night. I catch my reflection against the blackness. Mum’s right, I do look worn out.
She carries the soup over on a tray along with two glasses of water and when she sits down, she looks me straight in the eyes.
‘So, maybe you can tell me all about what’s making you so stressed.’
‘I’m not stressed,’ I lie.
‘Eliana Johnston, I know you better than I know myself. You called me and asked me to come down a day early. Now I know you love me dearly, but you never ask me to come down early unless something’s nipping at you.’
‘Hughes,’ I correct her, ‘my name is Eliana Hughes now.’ I take a spoonful of soup, blow on it gently before bringing the spoon to my mouth. It’s delicious. I try to distract my mother by telling her how lovely it is.
‘I know it’s lovely,’ she says with a smile, ‘just as you know you will always be Eliana Johnston to me. But that’s not what we’re talking about just now, is it?’
‘Just now I want to eat my soup, Mum. I’m too tired to think straight, you know?’
‘Okay,’ she says, but I feel her eyes on me as I eat.
She fusses around after, making sure I’m comfortable and relaxed. Only when I’m curled under a throw on the sofa in front of the blazing fire does she ask me again what’s wrong.
‘You know you can tell me anything,’ she says, her blue eyes wide.
My mother has the most beautiful blue eyes in the world, bright aquamarine. So vibrant. I’m incredibly jealous I haven’t inherited them and secretly hope my baby will.
I nod, but I feel a little silly and more than a little embarrassed. How can I tell her that her very-much-in-control daughter is struggling with pregnancy and worried the life she loves is about to disappear from under her feet?
‘Everything with the baby okay?’
The baby – always her first thought. I feel a pang of irrational something. Jealousy maybe. Whatever it is it’s followed immediately by guilt at having a negative feeling towards my own child.
‘The baby’s fine. Kicking and wriggling as normal. Still making me sick, so I’m pretty sure my hormones are still doing exactly what they should.’
‘You’d tell me, wouldn’t you? If you were concerned for the baby at all.’
‘Of course, Mum,’ I say.
And I mean it. My concern isn’t so much for the baby but more about how I’ll cope as a mother. Especially if I end up on my own. We’re not all like my mother. We don’t all thrive on our own.
‘Have you told Martin yet that you know the baby is a girl?’
I blush. I’m not at all comfortable with the fact that I know the sex of our baby and he doesn’t. But he wants it to be a surprise. I did too, until I started to feel so terribly ill and so worried that it’d affect how I bonded with her. So I’d figured that if I knew, it’d make her more real to me. That it might help.
I’m not in the habit of keeping things from my husband. Or I hadn’t been, but things had been different recently. I suppose I’ve been trying to justify it to myself, telling myself it doesn’t really matter. It’ll still be a surprise for him when she’s born, but I know that I’ve broken his trust. Maybe that’s part of the reason I’m even entertaining the notion he could be breaking mine, too. I know first-hand how easy it is to lie by omission, to hide what I know. I’ve even hidden a set of three pink onesies in a drawer upstairs.
‘No, Mum, and I don’t think I will. We’re close now anyway. I don’t think it’d do any good to anyone to cause upset now.’
‘Well, I can’t wait until it’s all out in the open. Then I can go legitimately mad in the shops and buy up all the pink in the world.’
‘You don’t have to go mad in the shops, Mum,’ I said. ‘You keep your money for yourself.’
‘Nonsense! I know I don’t have to spend my money on the baby, but I want to, and more than that, I’m going to. I’ve been saving up.’
‘Mum, you need your money. Save it up if you want but keep it for yourself. This baby’ll be fine. I promise.’
‘I’ve worked hard all my life, Eli, and if I want to spend my money on my grandchild, I will. And that’s the end of it. Sure, what else would I spend my money on? This is something happy! My first grandchild.’
‘And probably your last,’ I say with a grimace. ‘I can’t imagine ever going through this again.’
‘Everyone feels like that during your stage of pregnancy,’ my mother soothes. ‘You don’t know how you’ll feel after the birth, but I can tell you that even if you only have the one child, she’ll be more than enough.’
‘Did you always feel that way, Mum? Always feel I was enough?’ I ask.
She tilts her head to one side and those sparkling blue eyes look at me again. ‘From the moment I first held you, my darling, I knew that I’d never need or want anyone else in my life but you. If life had given me more children I’d have loved them too, of course I would. But I never felt anything but complete with you in my life.’
It’s too much emotion for pregnant me. I feel my chest tighten and I hug her. ‘I love you, Mum,’ I whisper into the soft curls of her hair on her cheek, the familiar smell of her Chanel No. 5 perfume comforting me.
‘You’ll be a great mother, Eliana. Don’t doubt yourself. Not even for a second. And I’ll be here for you, whenever you need me.’
‘I know,’ I whisper.
‘And you can tell me anything.’
‘I know that, too,’ I say.
‘Like if there was any reason you asked me to come down a day earlier than planned.’ She raises one eyebrow.
She’s not one to give up easily.
‘I told you, Mum, it’s nothing. Martin was just going away for work and, well, it’s getting closer to the baby coming and all …’
‘If you’re sure that’s all?’ she asks.
I nod. Thinking that yes, it is indeed easy to lie or just not tell the whole truth. Much too easy.
CHAPTER SIX
Eli
It’s just after 9.30 p.m. when my mother, seeing how hard I’ve been trying to stifle my yawns, orders me off to bed. I don’t argue. I’m bone tired but thankful that I’m also feeling soothed by my chat with Mum.
I plug my phone in to charge, rest it on the bedside table and climb under the covers. I’m just about to close my eyes, when it rings.
I see Martin’s name on the screen and, suddenly, I desperately want to talk to him. I want to hear his voice. I even think, maybe, just maybe, my mother’s right and I should tell him I know about the sex of the baby.
I don’t have to tell him she’s a girl. I can leave that surprise for him for the big day, but I shouldn’t keep from him the fact that I know. Not when I know how much of a spin it’s put me in to think he could be keeping something from me.
Answering the call, I do my best to sound jolly, to sound just like the Eli he fell in love with and not the grumpy wife he’d had words with last night.
‘Hi, baby, how’s your day been?’ I say.
He sighs, or maybe it’s a yawn. ‘Long and busy, but I wanted to check in with you before I settle down for the night. I didn’t like how we left things last night.’
‘We were both tired, let’s just file it under a “bad day” and let it go,’ I say.
‘How’s everything?’ he asks.
‘It’s fine, Martin. Mum came down early and made a big pot of her famous chicken soup. She insisted on doing the washing-up herself and packing me off to bed. I was just settling down. I’m in bed already.’
‘I wish I was there with you,’ he says softly.
Something in me, the part of me that needs this man always, tightens. I wish I could see his face, feel his breath on my face, his skin touching my skin.
‘I wish you were h
ere, too,’ I tell him. ‘I really do.’
‘I’ll be home in a few days,’ he says. ‘We can make up for it then. At least you’ve got your mother there for company while I’m gone.’
‘That’s true, but she’s not as good at spooning me as you are,’ I say.
‘Well, I do make for a very good big spoon,’ he says and I hear the longing in his voice.
It makes me feel loved. It makes me feel love for him. It makes wonder how I could ever doubt him.
He yawns and I know he’s too tired to launch into any deep conversation, so I tell him I love him and promise to talk to him tomorrow. Maybe I’ll tell him about the baby’s gender then.
I also make a promise to myself to take the stupid note out of my bag in the morning and throw it in the bin where it belongs. And to leave it there this time.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Louise
It couldn’t be that hard to follow someone, I figured. Especially at night-time when the roads are quieter. So I did. I walked behind her out of the supermarket. Left my basket abandoned in one of the aisles. Didn’t pay. I’d make do with toast for dinner.
Fate smiled kindly on me. The woman had parked her car close to the supermarket exit and I got a full look at the make and model. I knew my own car was parked just two minutes away on the main road, and if I hurried I’d still be able to follow her.
I got to my car as quickly as I could and switched on the engine, cursing that the windows of the old rust bucket I’d the misfortune to drive were so badly steamed up. I stuck the blowers on full. I didn’t have time to wait. I couldn’t let her get out of my sight and away. I grabbed the old chamois leather I kept in the glovebox and wiped the inside of the windscreen furiously. Just as I looked up, I saw the flash of headlights from the car park exit. Her car emerged and turned left towards the Foyle Bridge.
I swore under my breath. My visibility was still shocking and I was pointing in the wrong direction. I needed to do a U-turn, but with my rear windows still clouded over I couldn’t see clearly enough to do it safely.